Lugovskoy maintains lead – All India Chess Federation

Grandmaster Lugovskoy Maxim (Russia) maintained his lead with 7.5 points after the eighth round in the 11th Chennai Open International Grandmaster Chess tournament 2019 for Sakthi Group Dr N Mahalingam Trophy at Novotel IBIS OMR Hotel, Sholinganallur, Chennai.

Sharing the second spot with 7.0 points was Pantsulaia Levan of Georgia. Further half a point behind at third place with 6.5 points were top seed Predke Alexandr, Popov Ivan, Deviatkin Andrei (all Russia), Paichadze Luka (Georgia), Girish A Koushik and Vignesh N R (both India).

The top board game turned out to be a Queens Gambit Declined affair, where Kirill Stupak opened up his kingside for initiative. With both players castling long, the middle game piece play led them to a rook and minor piece ending. Overnight leader Lugovskoy played it safe, creating positional weakness into white territory. Kirill gave up when his position appeared falling apart, as he ran into his final seconds of play.

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The second board, saw top seed Grandmaster Predke Alexandr (Russia) shedding one more draw, this time against Grandmaster Paichadze Luka of Georgia. The Ruy Lopez exchange variation game saw early aggression from black. But, as soon as the queens were traded off, the players repeated their moves in a rook and knight ending signing peace after 31 moves.

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Sivaganga boy M Pranesh scored a fine win over International Master S Nitin of Southern Railways. With six points in his kitty, Pranesh is on the right track to achieve his International Master Norm. This ten round Swiss event carries a prize fund of Rupees 15 lakhs with 55 prizes in the Open & Category sections. The final round is scheduled for Friday, 25th Jan,2019.

Results

Round 8 on 2019/01/23 at 10.00 am

Bo.	No.		Name	Rtg	Pts.	Result	Pts.		Name	Rtg	No.
1	9	GM	Stupak Kirill	2542	6	0 – 1	6½	GM	Lugovskoy Maxim	2445	20
2	5	GM	Paichadze Luka	2583	6	½ – ½	6	GM	Predke Alexandr	2620	1
3	2	GM	Pantsulaia Levan	2597	6	1 – 0	6	GM	Karthik Venkataraman	2515	12
4	3	GM	Rozum Ivan	2589	5½	½ – ½	5½	IM	Nguyen Van Huy	2450	18
5	17	IM	Akash G	2453	5½	0 – 1	5½	GM	Popov Ivan	2588	4
6	25	GM	Neelotpal Das	2419	5½	0 – 1	5½	GM	Aleksandrov Aleksej	2582	6
7	7	GM	Erigaisi Arjun	2548	5½	0 – 1	5½	IM	Girish A. Koushik	2411	28
8	10	GM	Tran Tuan Minh	2541	5½	½ – ½	5½	WGM	Babiy Olga	2275	43
9	83		Siddarth M	2040	5½	0 – 1	5½	GM	Deviatkin Andrei	2461	14
10	15	IM	Vignesh N R	2461	5½	1 – 0	5½		Saurabh Anand	2210	56
11	39	IM	Ameir Moheb	2309	5	1 – 0	5	GM	Deepan Chakkravarthy J.	2543	8
12	11	GM	Megaranto Susanto	2530	5	1 – 0	5	IM	Tran Minh Thang	2355	36
13	13	IM	Gajek Radoslaw	2481	5	½ – ½	5	IM	Saravanan V.	2318	37
14	47	IM	Deshmukh Anup	2259	5	0 – 1	5	IM	Khusenkhojaev Muhammad	2455	16
15	19	IM	Shyaamnikhil P	2446	5	½ – ½	5	IM	Konguvel Ponnuswamy	2302	41
16	21	IM	Nitin S.	2442	5	0 – 1	5		Pranesh M	2125	72
17	49		Sai Vishwesh.C	2250	5	0 – 1	5	GM	Laxman R.R.	2421	24
18	79		Bala Kannamma P	2069	5	0 – 1	5	GM	Czebe Attila	2418	26
19	29	IM	Rajesh V A V	2410	5	1 – 0	5	GM	Ziatdinov Raset	2248	50
20	31		Sahoo Utkal Ranjan	2388	5	1 – 0	5		Senthil Maran K	2183	61